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So
terribly cold it was, and nearly dark on the last evening of the old
year. The snow was falling fast. In the cold and the darkness, a poor
little girl roamed through the streets. It is true she had on a pair
of slippers when she left home, but they were not of much use. They
were very large, so large, indeed, that they had belonged to her mother,
and the poor little creature had lost them in running across the street
to avoid two carriages that were rolling along at a terrible rate. She
could not find one of the slippers, and a boy seized upon the other
and ran away with it, saying that he could use it as a cradle when
he had children of his own. So the little girl went on with her little
naked feet, which were quite red and blue with the cold. In an old apron
she carried a number of matches and had a bundle of them in her hands.
No one had bought anything from her the whole day, nor had anyone given
her even a penny. Shivering with cold and hunger, she crept along; poor
little child, she looked the picture of misery. The snowflakes fell
on her long, fair hair, which hung in curls on her shoulders, but she
regarded them not.